The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1887-05-13
PRIMITIVE COOKING.

Lees time was 16 hours SO minutes. Fay.
! PRIMITIVE COOKING.
! Some "reminiscences of Early Days In
California.
J Especial Correspondence
BosToN, May 5.
: OF the 150, 900 males who in 1880 were
: avalanched on California from all parts of
! the world not one in 100 could boil q potato
properly.
/. A good bread maker easily got his $4O0 a
j month. For the first two years, cooks. black
smiths and carpenters could make far more
than lawyers. People on pinch could get
/. along without lawyers. They couldn't with
out cooks.
Many lawyers became good cooks, and
stuck to their adopted calling at $500 per
month until law practice began to pay. Law
didn't begin to pay until the miners juries
stopped hanging men for stealing. Their
hangings cost the county nothing Some
times, it is true, they hung the wrong man,
as a warning to the right one. But when the
lawyers stopped cooking and got in at their
legitimate work, crime became safer.
Indifferent wretches, who could stir -four
and water together, fling in u handful of
yeast powder and scorcll this compound on
> frying pan, set up for cooks and made their
$500 per month. "Flapjacks" were universal.
Within the first year of the raw cookery era
of California hundreds of amateur cooks
! could flip fapjack on frying pan by
imperceptible turn of the wrist and flop every
: inch of the unbaked side squarely OH tie
pans bottom. A meal of bull beef
! steak, hapjacks and dried appls at
the "Astor house" cost 81. The 'Astor"
was an old ships caboose moved
OH shore, with brief addition in its rear
Levy the landlord, used to hang out the sign
Potatoes to-day' Potatoes were then a
rarity. There were no eggs, nor hens to lay
them. Mince pies were made of salt beef,
soaked to a dead sort Of freshness, dried ap-
Piles and molasses. They sold at 81 each, and
We're not much thicker than a cake of hard
bread. It was nc great feat there to bite
through four pies il man could afford it,
Beans were universal. In many circles they
had them twenty-one times week. Most
American cooks would at first put the
pork to boil at the same time as
the beans and with the beans. Then they
wondered why the beans were so hard. Salt
hardens the beams heart. They found out at
last that the pork should not go into the pot
until about fifteen minutes before the beans
come off the fire.
Beans were generally cooked out of doors
! in dutch ovens" The beans cooked while
the boys dug on their claims. This peaceful
state of things lasted till the miners took to
keeping hogs and developed an ambition to
cover the Sierra foothills with countless herds
of swine. The swine would nose around the
cooking beans while the boys were away, and
eventually upset the pot and devour the
beans Such depredations led to shootings,
sometimes Of hogs sometimes of hog owners.
! or the hog owner shot the man who shot his
hogs or whom he thought had shot his hogs
Cows also were destructive. The cows
would sometimes eat through our houses, of
cotton drilling. returned to my home ON
Swelts Bar after attending county conven-
tion and found that cow had eaten through
: one side Of my house and gone out at the
other, and on the way devoured all my -four
and potatoes 1t was indeed a wrecked
ranch, for she had not been at all nice and
particular while feeding at the expense of
Democratic delegate. The cattle were crazy
after salt Anything which had held salt or
tasted Of salt would attract legions of cows.
An empty mackerel keg, which once unwisely
threw out Of doors, brought down from the
hills that night, should think, about forty
cows and bulls, who tramped and beloved
and gored each other all night for lick at
that keg. On another occasion they cbewetl
up two flannel shirts and two pairs of draw
ers--ny weeks washing left to dry OIL the
lne-for the sake of the salt i'm the CLOTH. OF
course got the clothes back, but they had
been too thoroughly digested to he wearabe.
met COW one day running Off with my
best coat. She had chewed and partly swal-
lowed the right sleeve. | chased her and
pulled the coat our of her. All this was for
the sake of the salt i'll the coat.
Thousands of miners tried to cook quart
of dry rice at once. The power of rice to
swcl-and sw. II when it once fairly gets ell
rapport with hot water, is something nlirac-
unus. 1t wount fill everything filll,le in the
cabin and keep up a never ceasing overflow
over the pots rim. / found Jack Ward once
in his cabin at . o'clock in the evening, SO
ladling rice from off his pot. He said he had
been thus engaged since o'clock, and the end
was not yet. Everything hollow in the house
was full OF half boiled rice. Jack had
bought whole sack. He carried it back
next day to the Indian Bar store and
exchanged it for other provision. remarking
that he thought pound would last him for
the remainder OF his days
ralone islands, situated in the ocean about
fifty miles from San Francisco They were
laid by sea gulls and s'murs," black bird
with red bill about the size of a half
grown hen. These eggs are about twice the
size of hens product. The gulls color Their.
eggs brown. The "mursn put ON a mottle @
blue, white and black. They are in taste
fishy. We did not taste much fish in the first
eggs because ve were hungry for eggs But
the second panned out piscatorialiy as much as
was agreeable, and by the time you reached
the third you could hardly tell whether it
was porpoise or eggs you were eating.
Most miners at first had crude ideas as to
the aI@,unt of provisions they should buy for
times and seasons Mike Barton came one
day in October to the Hawkins Bar store and
said he wanted to lay in stock of grub for
the winter. Mike had struck a rich .pot
hole" ON Gawleyis point A apot hole" may
be two or three feet deep and as round and
even as stove pipe. Some loose
stone lying on the bed rock, and turned
for countless ages by whirlpool, bores
it. Then it fills up with gravel and gold
dust Mike had pickle jars full Of gold dust
buried about his cabin. He kept a keg of
brandy ON free tap for his friends Mike was
rich for the first time in his life, and life for
him without plenty of whisky hadn't much
in it.
Said the storekeeper to Mike: aGive MS
your list OF provision for the winter Mike
hesitated. II guess, said he at last, ssI1l
ehave q sack of -four. q sack OF potatoes, ten
pounds of pork, five pounds of coffee, three
of sugar, pound Of tea and-and-a barrel
of whisky
On Fourth OF July Bob Gardiner gave q
dinner at his store on Swelt's Bar The
nySn sfs,elt that dinner for three miles alOne
the river. Bob waxed patriotic at the close
OF the FEAST which terminated with a plum
psriling and >"hard sauce Bob mounted
the table and straddled what was left of the
nl,'iing. Next him sat old TurIey. Turkeys
On s 4 lie table beside lis plate Next IL was the
bowl OF hard sauce Bob emphasized every
telling sentence by dipping from tie bowl d
la.iie full of sauce and bringing it down ON
odd Turley's craniuin. This brought down the